Saturday, September 11, 2004

Patriot Day

On September 11, 2004 it's important to remember and recall the sheer incompetence that directly led to the deaths of over 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001. It's equally as important to consider the over 1000 American lives, countless thousands of Iraqis lives, and untold billions of dollars that have been incomptently squandered in the aftermath. In the process of wasting those precious resources, the Bush misadministration has also created a fertile recruiting ground, where none previously existed, for the very same folks who caused the tragedy three years ago today.

I was watching a Hurricane Ivan update on The Weather Channel a little while ago. At the bottom of the hour, the bleach blonde bimbette (sorry, Liz) who was reading the weather intro began by saying it was a "beautiful day in the Northeast for Patriot Day, a day to remember those who gave their lives for America on Sept. 11th."

And I'm like - wait minute, bimbette - not a single person on the four airplanes that day, or one person on the ground, or in a WTC tower, or at the Pentagon, "gave their lives for America". They were quite randomly killed as a result of the acts of a small band of fanatics who (for the most part) originated in Saudi Arabia, were financed in large measure by the House of Saud (see my previous blog entry), and the precursors to their actions were blatently ignored by the government of the United States of America.

This is the kind of mindset that anyone who tries to tell the real story of September 11, 2001 is up against.

The link and brief excerpt below, from a chapter titled Operation Ignore in Al Franken's bestseller, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, was shamelessly appropriated from Atrios. I've never read the book - I have so many others backed up in the que - but this particular piece is as relevant as it gets on this third anniversary of the day that everything changed.

The holdovers from the Clinton era - Clarke and CIA Director George Tenet-were going nuts. Bush administration insiders would later say they never felt that the two men had been fully on board with Operation Ignore. Tenet was getting reports of more and more chatter about possible terrorist activity. Through June and July, according to one source quoted in the Washington Post, Tenet worked himself nearly frantic' with concern.

"Frantic" is indeed one word that's been used to describe George Tenet's demeanor in the weeks preceding 9/11/2001. Richard Clarke, in his book Against All Enemies (a book I did read, twice) characterized it as "Tenet running around Washington with his hair on fire".

If there's no other reason to hold the incompetent cowboy accountable on November 2, 2004 for his actions over the past four years, September 11, 2001 should be quite enough, thank you.